Leaving Neverland director Dan Reed says he has been targeted with thousands of death threats from Michael Jackson fans, as a result of making a documentary about two men who say the superstar abused them when they were children.
Reed told The Guardian newspaper: “I’ve had murderers try to find me. I’ve had people threaten to shoot me who are armed. I’ve been threatened many, many times.”
Reed spoke to Deadline earlier this week about the process of making Leaving Neverland 2, the sequel to his incendiary first film, which was released by HBO in 2019. The award-winning documentary featured Wade Robeson and James Safechuck, who alleged they had been sexually assaulted as juveniles by Michael Jackson, during the peak of his career.
Both the filmmaker and its subjects were targeted at the time of the first film by ardent fans of Jackson, claiming they were all out to make money from an innocent man no longer here to defend himself.
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This weekend in The Guardian, Reed went further about threats targeting him personally:
“I’ve kept company with very violent people for a very long time. I don’t want to say I’m a tough guy, but the needle doesn’t go into the red until I’ve got something quite specific. The threats delivered face to face I took seriously. People trying to find my home address to post me a parcel I took seriously. People in China sending me emails? I don’t take so seriously. They’re going to have to get on a plane.”
Leaving Neverland 2 picks up the story where the first film left off in 2019, chronicling Robson and Safechuck’s legal battle with the Jackson estate as they seek to hold the singer’s enablers accountable for the abuse they claim to have suffered.
HBO is not a partner for the new documentary, which will premiere in North America on Real Stories, the Little Dot Studios premium documentary channel on YouTube, and Reed is “genuinely excited” about it reaching as broad an audience as possible. The documentary will first premiere on Channel 4 in the UK on March 18.
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